We Remember

“Greater love has no on than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Today is Memorial Day, and here’s what I remember:

Sitting in the car at the post office when I was three listening to my mom console a grieving mother whose son was MIA in Vietnam.

Standing in a field when I was four watching two US Army airmen being carried in body bags out of the still-smoking wreckage of their plane and thinking, “That’s somebody’s daddy, and he won’t be going home tonight.”

Reading names on a display board at my church when I was eight which was hung during World War II as a prayer list and realizing that the ones I didn’t recognize were the men who didn’t return.

Learning about the Battle of Midway when I was ten while reading a book for my 5^th grade research paper and being sad that all thirty of Torpedo Squadron Eight died except Ensign George Gay.

Finding out when I was twelve that my neighbor’s brother had been killed during the Allied invasion of southern Italy and wondering if he had been a lot like Mr. Theron.

Waiting when I was fourteen to find out if a friend had survived the Beirut Marine barracks bombing and being relieved to know he was ok but grieved to know many others were not.

Walking a calm Omaha Beach in northern France on an overcast June morning when I was twenty and imagining the chaos, the courage, the fear, and the fight which signaled the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime a few decades before.

Staring when I was fourteen “between the crosses row on row” at Arlington Cemetery in D.C., a few years later at the D-Day Cemetery in Normandy, and just last week at the recently opened Sarasota National Cemetery and facing the sobering fact that each marker represents a life who served and sacrificed (many ultimately) for our country.

Standing yesterday and applauding in church as a highly decorated, retired lieutenant colonel led the congregation in a thank you to veterans who lived and a tribute to those who died.

More than all others, Christians should understand and value sacrifice. Because Someone gave His all for us, we experience true and lasting freedom. This perspective makes us appreciate more fully the high cost paid by so many for our country to enjoy national freedom. We would not live like we do if they had not died as they did.

My memories bring mostly second-hand emotion as I wonder how the dying felt and the grieving cried, but for many, and surely some of you, those tears are raw and real and deeply personal. Thank you. Thank you for the sacrifice made by those you love. Since they are no longer here to accept my gratitude, I share it with you and thank God for them.

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!

May God continue to shed His grace on America and may we always remember.